1. Field
The present disclosure relates, in general, to computer-implemented methods for generating documents and forms such as fillable forms that may be served over the Internet or other network and for generating templates used to produce or render such documents, and, more particularly, to improved methods for binding or linking data such as enterprise or company data assets to documents and templates.
2. Relevant Background
With the growing use of communications networks such as the Internet, it has become more common for companies and other users to serve electronic forms or documents in a variety of forms over networks to clients, customers, or other end users. The end users may use a computer or other electronic device and a browser running on this device to access a web page, for example, to view a form or document and to complete the form and then submit the form data back to a web server for processing of the data.
For example, a client of a web service provider may provide insurance information using such a served form or a customer may provide credit card or other purchasing information to complete a purchase via a fillable form. In other cases, enterprises or businesses may allow employees to generate letters or packages that are then transmitted to recipients such as customers on a large customer list using such fillable form or document. Often, these fillable forms or documents are rendered or created as document, letter, package, or form templates and during rendering, data may be retrieved from a data source and merged into the template to create a document or form to be served to a client device. It has often been difficult during rendering to properly link the data references (or data called for) in the template to a proper data source, especially when the location of the data or data source may change over time.
Briefly, a data binding method is provided that may be computer implemented, such as via use of a data binding web service, to provide data bindings within a template or similar application. The data bindings may be abstracted using data dictionary (DD) information or entries and web services that act to resolve the DD entries into actual data values by accessing an appropriate data store or data source. In brief, the method involves steps or processes that replace static data binding references that were placed in each template by adding an indirection using placeholders that may be managed globally via a corporate or enterprise data dictionary. The placeholders are subsequently replaced in the method with data (e.g., enterprise or corporate data or the like) outside of the particular templates. When a location of the data in an enterprise (or template user's system) changes, only the web service's backend implementation is altered to reflect the change in data location(s) such that all templates may continue to retrieve data for placeholders from the data dictionary via a previously defined, generic web service call.
More particularly, a computer-implemented method is provided allowing an online or electronic document to use abstracted data binding. The method includes serving an interactive document to a client or network node device via a digital data communications network/link using a server or computer. The interactive document may be rendered from a template and include a data field with a placeholder (PH) for a data value. The method may further include generating, with intelligence such as an initialization script or data binding request function provided in/with the document or document instruction/code set, a data binding request to resolve the placeholder into the data value. Then, with a data binding web service that may be provided with code devices/instructions executed by the same or a differing server, the method may include generating a data dictionary request that includes an identifier for the placeholder (which may be provided with the data binding request along with request resolution data such as a customer identifier, process data from the document provided by an operator of the client during document filling/interaction activities, or the like).
The method may further include using the data binding web service to process a data dictionary response, which includes placeholder content for the placeholder associated with the placeholder identifier, to determine a source of the data value and/or a location of the data source. The method also includes the data binding web service accessing the determined data source to obtain the data value and then providing to the interactive document a data binding response including the placeholder identifier and the resolved placeholder data value. In some implementations, the serving of the interactive document may include rendering in runtime the interactive document from a previously stored/created template, with the template designed such that a plurality of data fields are included in document content (such as letter paragraphs or the like) each including a data value placeholder but without a static data binding reference for the data value (as may have been the case with prior fillable forms or documents). The data binding request may include request resolution data such as a customer ID, process data from the document being filled by operation of the client, or the like, and this resolution data may be used by the data binding web service to access the data source and/or to resolve the data value (e.g., query a data source with a customer ID along with PH content from a data dictionary).
In some embodiments of the method, the data dictionary response may be generated by a data dictionary wet) service that provides an interface to a data dictionary database, which includes entries with placeholder identifiers and a set of placeholder content, such as information useful by the data binding web service in accessing the data source (e.g., a source identifier for the placeholder). Typically, the data dictionary database would be designed such that its data entries also provide no static bindings or references to the location of the data source, whereby the location of the source may be changed without requiring changes to the data dictionary database and its entries. In the above manner, the method abstracts data binding from the interactive document such that the document has no knowledge of the source of the data value, and, in some cases, the data dictionary database and DD web service also have not stating reference or data binding to the source, with the data binding web service acting to provide lists of placeholder IDs to hydrate to the DD web service, to process hydrated PH objects returned from the DD web service to determine the data source/data location, and to access the data source and return placeholder data values to the document.